Scattered Seeds - Sculpture for Horsham Park
The Gateway
Purpose is
to give a symbolic access to a different mood within the park.
To introduce the elements of: less managed natural growth, playfulness,
tactile surfaces, colours, shifts in scale, otherworldliness.
References
The Gateway has some specific references to the nature of the
green spaces in the Horsham area. These
are:
Heathland (rare habit, rich with wildlife,
which is being conserved in St Leonards Forest and Buchan Park) brings lizards,
ferns, sundews (insect trapping plants), berries.
Seasons Oak for summer, ivy for winter evergreens
Mythology The St Leonards legend brings the
image of the dragon but there was also the Dragon family (name goes back to
1682) which has probably named Dragons Green in the Horsham area and Dragons
Lane in Cowfold where this artist lives and walks daily.
The dragon legend includes the
reward requested by St Leonard after ridding the people of the dragon that the
snakes be banished from the forest. However
there is always a snake in the garden and the snake serves as a personal motif
and warning within this artists work.
Flower wheels The two flower wheels are primroses
and loosestrife. One emphasises the
hope of spring the other is a common flower in the area and personal motif of
the artist. To show flowers in a
simplified and stylised circular pattern is common in both the West and
the East. In England an obvious
example is the Tudor rose, in the East the lotus is used in many contexts. This artist has a strong interest in cross-cultural work.
Gothic Carving A strong influence. In
medieval church carving the tipped up seats (misericords) often have playful
themes of the topsy turvy world ie the cart before the horse, the pig playing
pipes to represent their squealing sound, showing the back instead of the front
of a flower (showing the chaos of changing the world order).
There are playful elements here that the back reflects the front of each
gatepost but is not consistent. Some
elements come through to the other side and weave logically, others don’t.
The tool marks and pattern
making is also influenced by this vibrant and sometimes crude hand carving of
the past.
Human antlered head
Is the overseer of all the
natural areas who is there to balance what is allowed to dominate.
On a simple level he could be seen as representing the park manager, the
maintenance staff etc.
Materials The Gateway is carved in green
(unseasoned) oak. Each post is a
single 4M high 600mm wide and 120mm thick piece.
There is 1.3 meters in the ground. There
are steel rods fixed crosswise and then one cubic metre of concrete poured into
the two footing to keep the wood upright. The
carvings are coloured with spirit stains and oil pigments.
They are coated over the top with 4 layers of Danish Oil, which will be
reapplied each year. Until the oil
was finally applied the work had to be covered with a tarpaulin every time it
rained as black tannins leach out of the wood when wet and streak down the
untreated surface. There are
a few stains of this left visible.
Timescale The
Gateway took 320 hours to carve (around 25 hours is the maximum completed in a
week). They were started August
2006 and completed in May 2007. They
were largely carved inside the artist’s studio in Cowfold over winter, but
were completed upright in a trial pit in the grounds where around 3 weeks was
spent finishing details and adding the colours and oil.
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